Keep Holding On
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: He didn't know how he felt about M, but when she was minutes away from death, it came to mind. Surely to god it wasn't...love? Was it? AU chapel scene...and what happens after. Contains mega spoilers for Skyfall. Possible one-sided 00M to start, and full-blown MxBond in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Right, I've had to rewrite this four times cuz the stupid computer keeps deleting it. I love you too, FanFiction. This is a one-shot AU chapel scene from Skyfall. It could sort of be an intro for my fics Revenge and Dignity. Possible one-sided 00M, it really depends how you look at it. Merry Christmas to all you fellow Bond/M shippers out there!**

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"I got into some deep water," Bond saw a faint ghost of a smile crossed M's face at the sheer awfulness of his joke, but to his horror, her legs gave under her and she collapsed before she could come out with a (potentially much worse) one of her own. He caught her before she fully hit the ground, and he was met by a few slightly pained words from M. "I suppose...it's too late...to make a run for it?..." Bond didn't say anything. He just stared at the blood on his hand. Where in the name of god did that come from? But, when he saw more of it pooling on the floor around M, he made the realization that for once it wasn't his. Everywhere. There was blood everywhere, especially all over M. Her hands and side were covered in the stuff; he could see it seeping from a gunshot wound maybe an inch below the left side of her stomach. It was all over her clothes. And when he had held her in his arms, it had gone all over his as well. "Why the hell didn't you tell me you were hurt?" James couldn't help feeling angry with himself and with her. How could she not have told him? But mostly him. It was his fault. What if...what if she died? He knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if she did. He really didn't know how he felt about her. Far more than a mere professional relationship, but surely to god not...Love? Was it?  
"I...didn't want to...cause a scene..." Her eyelids flickered, and her voice was growing quieter and quieter with every word she said. Bond hastily tore off his jacket and balled it up, using it to staunch the wound in M's waist. Something fell out of the pocket and skidded along the floor, but Bond didn't bother to check if it was important or not. M let out a low gasp of pain as her entire body convulsed with a spasm when Bond pressed the scrunched-up coat to her wound, but he held it fast. "James...please...I'm ready...don't worry...just let me die...please..." She pleaded, but Bond didn't listen. He turned his face away from her, scarcely able to bear the fact that she was in so much pain, and that he was probably just making it worse in an attempt to save her that she cared nothing for. Part of his mid was telling him; ' if she wants to die then just let her die. We all have to at some stage.' But he didn't care. "M, no. Whatever you do, don't close your eyes. Don't die on me. Please." James noticed the tiny thing that had slid out of his coat pocket. He was willing to bet his left ball that it was jut something totally insignificant, but...He was clinging to the vague hope that it was what he thought it was. And he was right.

"James, what's going on? What happened to Emma and that blonde guy you were chasing after?" James heard Kincade's voice and noticed that the old gamekeeper had come out from the chapel's side room.  
"Kincade, it doesn't matter. Just...where's the nearest hospital?"  
" 'Bout seven miles away."  
"Right." Bond picked up the minute radio that Q had given him before the mission in Hong Kong and turned it on. "Q?" He hastily barked into it. "Eve? Anyone?"  
"Hello?" He heard Mallory's voice on the other end. Not ideal, but he would do.  
"Mallory, serious situation. I think M's dying." Bond told Mallory the whole story, Kincade crouched beside M, clutching her hand. M was still alive, as far as Bond could tell, but only just.  
"Right, I can get a hospital somewhere close to you to dispatch an air ambulance if that helps at all."  
"Perfect." He turned it off, and said quietly to m; "You promise you won't die within the next five minutes?"  
"I'll...try..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, this was originally meant to be a one-shot, but I decided to write more. My first 00M fic, so please be kind. Kind of links up to my fic Scars Don't Fade in bits, so to get the full picture you may want to read that. If you do, please feel free to tell me what you think. RebaForever15, this is for you. xxx**

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"I'm such a bloody _idiot!_" M sobbed, leaning in on James, who was rubbing the space in between her shoulder blades in a botched attempt at getting her to calm down a little. She had been in hospital for two days now and seemed to be blaming herself for what had happened at Skyfall. James could tell that the events at the house had scored her deep with not only her physical scars from her wound, but mental scars which he knew would take far longer to fade than the visible ones in her flesh. "All that was my fault. Don't bother trying to tell me otherwise; we both know that it's true. . I wasn't being melodramatic in the chapel when I said that I wanted to die; it was really how I felt."  
"M," he gently took hold of her chin and turned her face towards his. "I don't care what you keep trying to convince yourself, because quite frankly it's a load of rubbish. It was me that put you through all that, it was me that almost got you killed, so I think you'll find that I'm the one to blame."  
"No, not the house. But Silva. If I hadn't given him up in the first place then twelve people would still be alive, there wouldn't have been that explosion in my office and I wouldn't be half-killing myself trying to deal with the guilt. You know that when he showed...no, poor choice of words, I don't actually know how to put it. Look, after..." M gestured to her upper jaw and James knew exactly what she meant. Even he, with his criminally high ego and carefully practiced art of ignoring his feelings so much that they virtually didn't exist (well, apart from the ones that involved M. They took up about half of his brain) had to say that he had been far more shaken by it than he would care to admit. "Well," M continued, leaning back and staring vacantly at the ceiling, her icy blue eyes fogging with sadness. "As soon as I saw that, the image didn't leave my head for about a week. I didn't sleep for four days straight, actually. I was a bloody wreck for the hearing, I can tell you that. It might also be why I was such a pain when we were in the car. Still, I thought about using my own cyanide when I was an agent and I actually almost did. I just...I had no idea that's what it actually _does._ I mean, I know that hydrogen cyanide is about eighty-five percent acid, and if it doesn't work, then it'll do one hell of a lot of damage, but I didn't know that it could practically dissolve a person's face..." M's voice tailed off, and James watched a tear slip down her face. Again, he didn't know what was going on inside his head. Was this a good time to tell her? Maybe. He didn't know.

About ten minutes passed, M lying in silence and James having a mental debate between his true feelings and the less suicidal part of him. He knew that if M didn't kill him, then embarrassment probably would. But, after scripting what he would say in his head, he turned to M. "Evelyn-"  
"M," she said abruptly, still not letting her gaze meet his. It was obvious that she didn't want him to see her cry, though he could still see the tear tracks marking her face. There was no trace of her having been crying in her voice, though. "You know that I could have you shot for just knowing my real name, I think that actually using it is asking to get killed."  
Damn, why did he have to start by using her real name? Still, he had to cover for himself now. "I don't care. It's a beautiful name for a beautiful woman."  
"James, either you've lost your head or I've lost thread of the conversation, because I don't know what the hell you're on about. What?"  
"There's no way around it. Look, I'm not about to start singing One Direction here, but on the way here, there was this song called 'Little Things' came on, and I think it described how I feel about you. You'll never feel the same way about yourself as I feel about you. You can never love yourself the way I love you."  
"Right, I'm going for you've completely lost your mind. What on earth are you talking about? And what could you possibly see in me? There's a thirty year age gap between us, plus I'm a twice-divorced widow with four kids and I'm about a foot shorter than you whilst we're on the subject."  
"Why do people have such a...for want of a better word, thing about age when it comes to things like this? Have you ever heard the expression; 'the measure of love is to love without measure? And I love _you, _M, I love you. Ever since I first saw you when you were on your last mission; you'd been tortured and I got sent to rescue you; when you were in my arms. Remember, you were completely flat line for about a quarter of a minute, I've always loved you from then on pretty much. That freaked me out; in fact it nearly destroyed me, but the other day was worse. Oh god, it was worse beyond belief When we were in the chapel and you told me to let you die; when I thought that you would, I was completely beside myself. I felt terrible when I was trying to stop you bleeding because I could see it in your face; I was hurting you so much and you didn't even want to live. When you were unconscious, well...I kissed you."  
"Well, considering the fact that we both just bared our souls to each other, I would say that we're both going a bit soft, James. And I would have preferred it if you hadn't just brought up the Deja Vu thing, you do know that the memory gives me trouble sleeping, to put it mildly. And...well, I suppose that...well, I think that the feeling's mutual. But, just telling me how you feel, is that all you're going to do?"  
"No," gently taking hold of her shoulders, James eased M upwards and pulled her close. He had one hand wrapped around her back; the other gently running through her hair. Both of hers rested on his shoulders, the thumb of her right hand lightly tracing the scar from the, quote, 'bloody shot' through his shirt. Before pulling her into a long, passionate kiss, he said; "This is."


	3. Chapter 3

M was struggling to comprehend what had just happened. James had been talking about One Direction in one breath and then kissing her in the next, what on earth had gotten into him? She stared at the ceiling and closed her eyes, the feeling of his lips still lingering on hers, though he had left about half an hour ago. There was one thing she knew, though. She had loved it...

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James mulled over the thoughts that he was either the biggest idiot ever to grace the planet or incredibly brave - or he simply had a death wish and just didn't know about it. Three in the morning and he wasn't asleep yet. For no apparent reason, he had been up and down to the toilet all night, probably to keep himself awake, and that was how he found himself stooped over the white marble sink of the hotel suite he was staying the night in's bathroom, staring at his reflection. He looked, quite frankly, like hell. The fact that he had barely washed in three days and as a result you could probably have cooked chips in the grease that had accumulated in his hair and he absolutely stank didn't really help, but the fact that he was supposedly a physical wreck was maybe starting to show through. He could see it in his tired eyes, in the slight sag of his features. And not only that, but he _felt _completely shattered emotionally. On the inside. Though he knew that she was fine, he just couldn't stop thinking about M. About all that he had put her through. About the light leaving her eyes, at her fragile, tear-streaked face when they had been in the chapel. When he thought that she was going to...No, he couldn't say it. He had noticed earlier that he now had an inability to listen to the song 'No Light, No Light' by Florence and the Machine, owing to the lines; _No light, no light in your bright blue eyes. _It had hurt him on the inside seeing her like that, it truly had. He had known for a while that she wasn't just the stroppy, uptight, feminist head of MI6 he had had her down for, nor indeed the mother figure that Mallory had assumed that she was for him. But it had taken a lot of time, mostly that he had spent in the shower with Severine, to accept that she was the one for him. But only now did he realize that he literally couldn't live without her...

But the fear was over, he thought as he stared at his bedraggled reflection. She was going to be alright. Both of them were. He remembered that she had said before that she saw herself in him. And it was true, he had to admit. He had delved deep enough to tell that, apart from her appaling aim with a gun and Silva-esque preference of blowing someone to bits preferrably from a different continent, she had once been almost exactly like him, just 5'1" and a woman. Beautiful (okay, nothing had changed on that front,) young, reckless, suave and the female equivilent of a womanizer, whatever that might be. Simliar to him, she had lost both of her parents when she was twelve. And he had noticed previously that the coloyur of his eyes and hers were ridiculously similar.

They were both hard. The had both been through enough hell for about seven people. They were both in MI6 and at that British. They would get through this. Perhaps not quite in one piece, but together...

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_~Fin~_


End file.
